Pistachio & Cookie Dough
by moonswirl
Summary: Gleekathon, day twelve - Why does Quinn keep yelling at Finn about ice cream?


_Three... Two (!!) week Glee hiatus, the horrors! To try and make it go by faster, I decided to do this project. I'll put up one new ficlet every day (I hope...) up to the day Glee returns! So be on the lookout! :)_

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**"Pistachio and Cookie Dough"  
Quinn**

She knew why she'd told Finn it was his baby that she was carrying. She knew why she had to do it and she'd done it, with complete peace of mind.

And she'd had peace of mind… at first. But with time came time to think, time to worry, time to… feel guilt.

Finn was so kind to her, so attentive to her needs with the baby. It was everything she could hope for… but it also made it worse, made her feel worse and she should… she had to acknowledge what this could end up doing to him.

Maybe it was hormones.

Only it wouldn't let go of her. And every day it got worse, until she understood what it was that was bothering her. Part of her, deep down, wanted to tell him the truth.

She could tell him the truth… set him free. She'd brought him into this when he could just go on living his life, unaffected by this.

He could be free… but she couldn't, and that was the problem, wasn't it?

Still, that truth-seeking part wouldn't let go of her conscience. Every time she saw him now, every time he was overly kind to her, her conscience angel and devil had it out like a couple of Cheerios after the last good tanning spot.

The first time she'd felt the urge to tell him, she'd been saved by the bell ringing an end to Spanish class. The fact that she'd "gotten away" with it that time only made the next time feel like a ticking time bomb, precipitated by acts of kindness.

Then one time over lunch, she'd been feeling particularly queasy, and Finn had stuck right by her side, helping her get past it. She'd looked up to him, seen those kind, concerned eyes, and her conscience angel knocked the devil right out. She could feel it right there. "Finn, I…" He looked at her. "I…" But then, the devil pulled her back.

"Yeah?" she blinked, breathed out.

"Can you get me ice cream?" he smiled.

"What kind?" she looked down.

"Surprise me." She felt him squeeze her shoulder before he headed off. She watched him go, buried her head in her hands. When he'd returned with a cup of chocolate ice cream. She quietly ate it up, as though sating the angel and devil.

The next morning, Finn showed up with saltines, having read it would help. She asked for ice cream, got cookie dough brought to her.

There was something odd about an act being both guilt-free and guilt-ridden. Ice cream had always been an indulgence, much harder to come by under the reign of Sylvester. Now she could indulge all she wanted… still, within moderation.

But every time she used ice cream as a block to her telling Finn the truth, it only made it worse. Every time she used the excuse, she got more frustrated… with herself. So every time she lost the will to speak up and asked for more ice cream, she got louder, screaming for the guilt-free/ridden dessert.

She was thankful Finn had no idea what was going on, that he cold chalk it up to hormones. He almost made it easy for her not to say anything, to let the devil win and just live in the comfort that she had someone like Finn willing to stick by her side.

As she ate her way through the latest cup, this time pistachio, she knew she had to find a way to make this stop. As much as the ice cream helped make her feel better, she knew she couldn't keep taking refuge in this.

So there were two possible outcomes to this problem: She could tell Finn the truth, tell him he wasn't the father and let him no doubt run off into Rachel Berry's arms and leave her to cope alone… or she could try and find a way to manage, keeping the secret and stopping this impulse to want to tell him.

Ironically, the thing that would help her get through this patch, trying to chase the battle in her conscience, was Glee Club. She could forget any of her problems, really, just sing and dance and have fun… be a normal teenager again.

Finn wasn't making it easy for her to hold on to her effort to keep the secret down… not that she expected him to, or wanted him to.

She needed to let it off her chest. The only problem was… who was she supposed to talk to? She couldn't talk to family, Cheerios, Glee Club… She couldn't tell Mr. Schuester because of her arrangement with his wife.

Then she saw Miss Pillsbury in the hall, scrubbing at the water fountain spout. Maybe… Did she have such a thing as a code of silence with whatever she was told. But she was close to Mr. Schuester. They acted like as much of teenagers as they did when they were around one another, could she trust her not to tell him anything?

She was going to have to take her chance… Maybe she didn't have to tell her absolutely everything. She could always bend the truth just a bit… not tell names.

She waited until Emma was done with the fountain, until she returned to her office. She took a breath, and she went up to the door, giving a knock.

THE END


End file.
